Bates, Bowdoin and Colby colleges also will have access

LEWISTON – The University of Maine System has hired Oxford Networks to provide the state’s universities and colleges and The Jackson Laboratory with high-speed Internet access.

Oxford Networks will extend its infrastructure 140 miles south to the Internet2 network in Boston. Internet2 is an advanced, super high-capacity nationwide broadband network for research and education purposes.

“The Jackson Laboratory is extremely excited about this, the final leg of our high-speed connectivity to the Internet and Internet2,” said Scott McNeil, Jackson Lab’s chief information officer. “The culmination of this portion of the route is key to our success and that of the University of Maine System.”

The University of Maine System has been connected to Internet2 for at least a decade, but with bandwidth it leased. In partnership with Jackson Lab, the university system will build its own network, allowing it to oversee – and dramatically increase – its own bandwidth, speed and capability.

Most digital Internet subscribers receive Internet information at one megabyte per second. Oxford Networks expects to provide UMS and Jackson Lab with fiber-optic connections of 10 gigabytes per second. That’s 10,000 times faster than normal subscribers. At that speed thousands of photographs could be transmitted on the Internet in a single second. Research data could be sent and received instantaneously, saving researchers time.

“Believe me, that’s significantly fast,” McNeil said.

Under the old system, researchers sometimes had to hand-deliver data because the Internet connection was too slow. It was faster for them to drive from Bar Harbor to Orono than to try to transmit the information electronically.

Proponents say expanded Internet access will help attract researchers and federal research funding to the state.

“This fiber-optic-based research and education network is a powerful tool that solidifies Maine’s appeal and potential as a high-tech center of research, development and commercialization of products, technologies and ideas,” UMS Chancellor Richard Pattenaude said in a prepared statement.

Bates College in Lewiston, Bowdoin College in Brunswick and Colby College in Waterville will have access to Internet2. Nonprofit research entities, such as Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory in Bar Harbor, will also have access to the network.

“This expansion of broadband Internet capacity will allow Maine colleges, such as Bates, to keep pace with the explosion of knowledge in other more densely populated states,” said Lewiston Rep. Elaine Makas, who also is a professor at Bates.

In Brunswick, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, UMS and Bowdoin College have plans to expand onto the former Naval Air Station. This broadband enhancement will help with their growth.

Funds for the project will come from Gov. John Baldacci’s $4.9 million broadband network investment package for Maine research and education institutions, approved last year with $3 million from the 123rd Legislature. Jackson Lab, a nonprofit Bar Harbor lab known for genetics and disease research, invested $1.9 million in the project.